Category: Speaker Series

PTIP: Taiwan's 2022 Local Elections Results

11/21/2022

On November 29, I'm going to speak about the Taiwan local election outcomes at the Hoover Institution. The event is virtual; online attendance is free and open to the public. Register at the event page. The abstract is below.

In anticipation of this talk, I've attempted to keep track of the candidates and campaigns in each county and municipality on this blog; you can find the details here:

Part 1. The Six Special Municipalities
Part 2. North and Central Taiwan
Part 3. The South, East, and Offshore Islands
Part 4. Concluding Thoughts
Local Elections Update, One Month Out

On behalf of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region (PTIP) and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to Taiwan’s 2022 Local Election Results: What Happened and What It Means on Tuesday, November 29, 2022 from 4:00 - 5:15 PT.

On November 26, 2022, Taiwan's electorate will go to the polls to select 22 mayors and county executives, several hundred council members, and thousands of other local offices. Voters will also decide on a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age from 20 to 18. This talk will cover the results of the elections and discuss the implications for Taiwan's future, including cross-Strait relations, local governance, party politics, President Tsai Ing-wen’s last 18 months in office, and the race to succeed her in 2024.

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PTIP: How the Ukraine Crisis Shapes Public Opinion in Taiwan -- And Beyond

10/18/2022

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Programming note: I had to bow out of this event at the last minute because of a positive COVID test; a hearty thanks to my colleague Glenn Tiffert for stepping in on very short notice.

On behalf of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to How the Ukraine Crisis Shapes Taiwan’s Public Opinion -- and Beyond on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 from 4:00 - 5:00 PST.

Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s response has changed the calculation of war strategies and US involvement worldwide. On the other side of the world, a potential 2027 China invasion of Taiwan looms over the stability of East Asia, and public opinion in democratic Taiwan plays a crucial role in its own choice of security strategies. How does the Ukraine crisis influence or shape the Taiwanese people’s preference for security and foreign policies? How might the US response and presence in Europe and East Asia play a role in Taiwan? In this talk, Dr. Austin Horng-En Wang traces and analyzes public opinion in Taiwan before and after the start of the Ukraine crisis and explains how the changes across subgroups are likely to impact the upcoming elections in Taiwan and the future of the US-Taiwan relationship.

Featuring Austin Horng-En Wang, Assistant Professor University of Nevada, Las Vegas, followed by a conversation with Kharis Templeman Research Fellow Hoover Institution.

Dr. Austin Horng-En Wang is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His research focuses on political psychology, public opinion, and the politics of East Asia. His research articles can be found in the Journal of Peace Research, Social Media + Society, Asian Survey, and Political Research Quarterly, among others. He is the recipient of The Wilson Center 2021 China Fellowship, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation 2020 Scholarship, and Global Taiwan Institute 2019 Scholarship.

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PTIP: Taiwanese at the UN: The Use and Abuse of UN Resolution 2758

5/31/2022

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On behalf of The Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region (PTIP) and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to Taiwanese at the UN: The Use and Abuse of UN Resolution 2758 on Tuesday, May 31, 2022 from 11:30am-12:45pm PDT.

In 1971, UN Resolution 2758 granted the seat occupied by the Republic of China in the General Assembly and the Security Council to the People's Republic of China (PRC). In recent years, the PRC has attempted to reinterpret this resolution as an endorsement of its "One China Principle," and it has promoted the fallacy that UN member states came to a determination that Taiwan was a part of the PRC. Yet, as the historical official records show, member states made no such determination about Taiwan's international status.

This effort around Resolution 2758 is part of a broader campaign by the PRC to expand its influence in UN-affiliated bodies. Taiwan remains the foremost target of this campaign. Since 2016, at Beijing's behest, Taiwanese representatives have been blocked from participating even as observers in international organizations such as the World Health Assembly (WHA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The PRC has institutionalized and normalized its stance on Taiwan within these organizations by signing secret agreements, restricting the access of Taiwan nationals to the UN and its facilities, and embedding PRC nationals across various levels of UN staff. The UN and its specialized agencies have not made the texts of these agreements available to the public or to any entity beyond the main signatories, though leaked guidance memos provide insights into the scope of MOU contents.

In this event, Jessica Drun will discuss Beijing’s efforts to “internationalize” its “One China Principle" and to conflate it with UN Resolution 2758. Her remarks will draw on a recent report, co-authored with Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund, that documents Beijing’s expanding influence in UN-linked organizations. She will be joined by Chih-Fu Yeh, a PhD candidate in biology at Stanford University, who in December 2020 was improperly barred from joining a UNESCO-backed winter school session because of his Taiwanese nationality. Mr. Yeh will describe his own experience and highlight how overly strict interpretations of UN regulations and guidelines continue to impose real costs on Taiwanese citizens.

Jessica Drun is a Nonresident Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. She has also held positions in the defense contracting space and the National Bureau of Asian Research. Ms. Drun specializes in cross-Strait relations, Taiwan politics, and U.S.-Taiwan relations and regularly provides commentary on these issues. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Chih-Fu Yeh is a PhD candidate studying microbial community ecology and evolution in Department of Biology at Stanford University. He was born and raised in Taiwan. In Winter 2020, Chih-Fu applied to a ICTP/UNESCO winter school session on quantitative systems biology, and was denied permission to attend the event because of his Taiwanese nationality.

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PTIP: Taiwan's Quest for Energy Security in an Era of Global Instability

5/2/2022

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Tuesday, May 3, 2022 from 4:30 - 5:45 pm PT, the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific (PTIP) at the Hoover Institution will host a special event examining Taiwan's acute dependence on foreign energy imports. The event will be online and is free and open to the public. Please register at the event page.

In 2020, 93 percent of the energy consumed in Taiwan came from imported fossil fuels: oil, coal, and liquid natural gas. Taiwan’s government is also phasing out nuclear power, with the last nuclear generation unit scheduled to be shut down in 2025. This overwhelming reliance on imports is at odds with Taiwan’s pledges to reduce its carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. It also presents a serious security vulnerability: a prolonged disruption of energy supplies could quickly bring Taiwan’s economy to a halt, including its strategically important semiconductor industry.

In this event, three experts on Taiwan’s energy policies will discuss Taiwan’s changing energy mix, its ambitious plans for developing renewable energy sources and lessening dependence on imports, and how Taiwan’s exclusion from important international energy bodies such as the International Energy Agency adds to its energy security challenges.

Speaker Bios

Ker-hsuan Chien is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Technology Management at National Tsing Hua University. Her research focuses on the socio-technical aspects of the energy transition in Taiwan. She is particularly interested in how the state’s industrial policies, the pressures from international corporate governance, and the materiality of the electric power system co-shape the path of Taiwan’s energy transition.

Kuan-Ting Chen (he/him) is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Taiwan NextGen Foundation, a Taipei and Chiayi-based think tank working to make Taiwan more sustainable, diverse, and inclusive. Previously, he served as the Deputy Spokesperson and Chief Research Officer at Taipei City Government. In this position, he worked to strengthen Taipei's national and international standing, formulated methods to realize public policy objectives, researched and generated activism for new policy directions, and initiated the Taipei City Government’s international internship program.

Marcin Jerzewski (he/him) currently serves as the Taipei Office Analyst at the European Values Center for Security Policy and Research Fellow at the Taiwan NextGen Foundation. Committed to public scholarship, Marcin is also a contributor to the China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe platform of the Czech Association for International Affairs and a fellow of the BEBESEA (Building Better Connections between East and Southeast Asia) collective. As a scholar of Taiwan-Europe relations, he is a frequent commentator in Taiwanese and international media, including the BBC, Focus Taiwan, The Guardian, RTÉ, and Voice of America.

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PTIP: Phillip Saunders, April 6

4/7/2022

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On April 6, Phillip Saunders of National Defense University spoke about PLA modernization and its implications for Taiwan's defense strategy and U.S.-Taiwan security cooperation. The talk abstract is below; the video is now available at the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific event page.

Drawing upon the new book Crossing the Strait: China’s Military Prepares for War with Taiwan, Dr. Saunders will discuss China’s available military options, how organizational reforms and new capabilities have improved the PLA’s ability to execute these options, the current cross-strait military balance, the challenges China would face in trying to resolve the Taiwan issue by force, and how Beijing weighs military, economic, and political factors in its evolving Taiwan policy calculus. His presentation will draw upon extensive open-source analysis of PLA efforts to build the necessary power projection capabilities and discuss how lessons learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may affect thinking in China, Taiwan, and the United States.

Featuring Phillip C. Saunders Director, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs National Defense University, followed by conversation with Kharis Templeman, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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PTIP: Wendy Cutler, February 7

2/8/2022

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On February 7, Wendy Cutler spoke about the prospects for strengthening U.S.-Taiwan economic ties. Abstract is below; video is now available at the Hoover Institution Program on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific (PTIP) event page.

U.S.-Taiwan economic ties are at a crossroads. In 2020, President Tsai Ing-wen lifted a ban on U.S. pork imports containing the feed additive ractopamine, removing a long-standing irritant in trade relations with the United States. Last summer, the Biden administration held bilateral talks with their Taiwan counterparts under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) for the first time since 2016. In more recent months, the two sides have begun additional discussions about strengthening the resilience of global supply chains, including the supply of one of Taiwan’s most strategically important exports: semiconductors. In this discussion, Wendy Cutler of the Asia Society will comment on these developments and the prospects for deepening U.S.-Taiwan economic relations in a moderated conversation with Hoover Research Fellow Kharis Templeman.

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PTIP: Taiwan's 2022 Local Elections Results

PTIP: How the Ukraine Crisis Shapes Public Opinion in Taiwan -- And Beyond

PTIP: Taiwanese at the UN: The Use and Abuse of UN Resolution 2758

PTIP: Taiwan's Quest for Energy Security in an Era of Global Instability

Speaker Bios

PTIP: Phillip Saunders, April 6

PTIP: Wendy Cutler, February 7

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